The global economy is continually evolving, with new market trends constantly emerging. There appears to be one exception, globalization remains a dominant and consistent trend, even among SMEs. Numerous SMEs enter international markets, encountering diverse business standards and cultures, and must align their local strategies with global responsibilities. They need to consider their position in the global economy and their impact on all stakeholders, from actors in the supply chain to citizens in the countries where they operate. Corporate Social Responsibility has become an increasingly important approach for businesses to understand and improve their global impact and competitiveness by adapting both internal and external strategies. Therefore, this thesis investigates how internationalization impacts CSR initiatives for SMEs when expanding across European borders and how these practices contribute to companies' long-term success. Moreover, the emphasis on culture is investigated through Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the CAGE distance framework, to understand the challenges and opportunities related to cultural differences, along with other distances between countries encountered while internationalizing. Furthermore, CSR is investigated based on popular cluster definitions and approaches suggested by the EU and the UN. For the simplicity of this thesis, SMEs originating from Sweden and Germany have been the focal point of this research.  For this thesis, primary and secondary data have been collected and will be analyzed using a qualitative research approach. Secondary data comprising theoretical literature was collected and analyzed from numerous databases. Primary data was gathered through Semi-structured interviews with four specialists employed at SMEs and one expert working with local and global SMEs regularly. This data collection will be analyzed to suggest successful CSR approaches related to the internationalization within Europe.  This research concludes that SMEs must understand their global responsibilities to stay competitive in the international market as CSR will become an inevitable part of a company's business strategy. Companies prioritize different aspects of CSR based on their size and industry and adjust these strategies in line with market trends and the conditions of their respective industries. The extent to which companies can integrate CSR into their core values and business plans depends on the resources available to them.

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[pt] Tendo em vista que decorridos quase cem anos do seu nascimento, após vários ciclos de crescimento e contração, a indústria aérea ainda se mostra frágil, apresentando vários casos de recuperação judicial e falências, pesquisa-se sobre o declínio organizacional, afim de identificar, quais fatores, elementos, aspectos organizacionais e ambientais, escolhas e ações gerenciais, stakeholders envolvidos, e seus respectivos graus de envolvimento, que possam influenciar na dinâmica de sucesso e fracasso organizacional. Para tanto é necessário identificar padrões longitudinais de comportamento organizacional, propor visualizações da informação que gerem insights inovadores sobre stakeholders do setor, e entender os desafios e pressões específicos da indústria. Utilizando uma perspectiva histórica, a presente pesquisa realiza um estudo de caso comparativo longitudinal sobre as companhias aéreas Delta Airlines e Eastern Airlines, duas empresas atuantes desde os primórdios da indústria aérea norte americana, que, no entanto, acabaram tendo diferentes destino nos anos 1990. Diante disso, verifica-se que apesar das características empreendedoras e suas iniciativas de expansão e crescimento, o grau de endividamento (alavancagem), a gestão de folga organizacional, a capacidade no gerenciamento de conflitos e a aptidão de adaptação em um ambiente dinâmico de negócios, podem ter sido as causas do declínio e posterior dissolução da Eastern e da sobrevivência continuada da Delta. / [en] In view of that almost a hundred years after its birth, after several cycles of growth and contraction, the airline industry is still fragile, presenting several cases of judicial recovery and bankruptcies, it is verified the importance of research on the organizational decline, in order to identify, which one s factors, elements, organizational and environmental aspects, managerial choices and actions, stakeholders involved, and their respective degrees of involvement, which could influence the dynamics of organizational success and failure. Therefore, it is necessary to identify longitudinal patterns of organizational behavior, propose visualizations of the information that generate innovative insights about stakeholders in the sector, and understand the specific challenges and pressures of the industry. Using a historical perspective, this research carries out a comparative longitudinal case study on the airlines Delta Airlines and Eastern Airlines, two companies operating since the beginning of the North American airline industry, which, however, ended up having different destinations in the 1990s. Therefore, it appears that despite the entrepreneurial characteristics and their expansion and growth initiatives, the degree of indebtedness (leverage), the management of organizational slack, the capacity in conflict management, and the ability to adapt in a dynamic business environment, may have been the causes of Eastern s decline and subsequent dissolution and Delta s continued survival.